Donald Pols, the former director of Milieudefensie, the Dutch branch of major environmental NGO "Friends of the Earth," sparked controversy last month when he accepted the position of Chief Sustainability Officer at multinational company Tata Steel.
On Tuesday, however, Tata Steel announced the sudden termination of Pols's contract after just one day on the job, stating that "additional information about his background has come to light" that "has affected us and was not previously shared with the company."
Later, Dutch newspaper NRC revealed Pols had been a member of the far-right South African Afrikaner Studente Front (ASF) movement during his time as a student.
ASF was a prominent pro-apartheid group in the 1980s and early 1990s active at the University of Pretoria. In 1991, Pols had participated in the disruption of a visit by Nelson Mandela to the university, where hundreds of ASF members burned flags of Mandela's ANC movement and shouted pro-apartheid slogans.
Pols admitted to NRC that he had been a member of ASF and called his behaviour at the time "reprehensible," adding: "There is no justification for it, nor do I seek one. I take responsibility. But I am in no way the person I was back then."
